Automatic toilet seats with protective coverings are well known, with such a toilet seat being disclosed in EP 402 438 B1. This prior art toilet includes a seat which can be automatically raised and lowered, and a paper gripper which is designed to remove a protective paper from a paper stack installed in a case and then cover the seat with this paper. The automatic toilet seat is controlled by a single drive motor, which operates both the pivot action of the seat and also the action of the paper gripper.
This single motor design, however, requires an extremely complex action involving cam plates which must operate with precise timing. A mechanism is provided which allows the single drive motor to power the paper gripper to extract one protective cover from the paper stack while at the same time the seat is pivoted upward. As soon as the paper is caught by the paper gripper, the drive motor continues running through the appropriately controlled cam plates and sets the pivot action of the seat in motion, so that the seat then pivots down into the ready position with the paper secured thereon. After use is completed, the process is reversed, so that first the paper gripper is released while the seat is in the lowered position permitting the protective covering to be removed from the seat during the ensuing flushing, and then once the paper gripper is released, the seat is pivoted upward into the raised position where it remains.
This is a very cumbersome drive operation and the related mechanism with its appropriate mechanical delayed timing sequence is extremely expensive to produce. As a further disadvantage, because this well-known installation uses a complicated mechanism, it is necessary to employ a gas pressure spring which ensures that, when the seat is pivoting downward, the resulting acceleration forces are caught and contained, in order to avoid having the seat strike the rim of the toilet bowl at high speed. Another disadvantage of this arrangement is that it is not necessarily controllable because a single drive motor is used. One result, for instance, is that the speed of the seat's pivoting motion cannot be adjusted nor can the time interval between the pivoting of the seat and the action of the paper motor or other similar items. In other words, such an arrangement, given the conditions of its construction, cannot be reduced or adjusted. Furthermore, owing to the absence of an intelligent control, there is the disadvantage that related additional mechanisms cannot be controlled, such as additional mechanisms for the infusion of a disinfectant during the flushing process.
What is desired therefore is a drive mechanism for an automatic toilet seat with a protective cover which can be produced and operated with substantially improved cost effectiveness, simplicity, and safety.